NEW PROMINENT ROLES FOR MICROPROCESSORS IN POWER SYSTEM CONTROL

This paper provides an overview of the impact of microprocessors on current electric utility SCADA system design. Although microprocessors have beenused in SCADA equipment for somefifteen years, it has only been in the last few years, prompted by an emerging mass market for Personal Computers (PCs), that SCADA hardware and software designers have started to take advantage of the versatility and low cost of microprocessors. The incorporation of microprocessor-based workstations into modem SCADA systems redefines the concepts of redundant and interconnected SCADA systems, and increases the available options for expanding existing SCADA systems to cover new requirements. Strategies for rejuvenating existing SCADA systems with newmicroprocessor-based products,promising the possibility of gradually evolving systems as opposed to distinct life cycles requiring periodic replacementof an entire SCADA system,will be the focus of our discussion.